The VCS Chair Reading for March 2013

This month’s entry in the VCS Chair Readings series is a selection from the September 2012 issue of the journal Modernism/Modernity. Here are some comments about it from VCS Department Chair Tom Huhn:

I’m very happy to pass on and recommend this illuminating essay by Amy M. Von Lintel, “Wood Engravings, the ‘Marvelous Spread of Illustrated Publications,’ and the History of Art.” Von Lintel explores the prominent role played by wood engravings in the circulation of art historical images in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Her essay details how important wood engravings were for the transmission and dissemination of art historical images for both popular as well as academic art history audiences. There’s much to be learned here in regard to the kind and quality of art historical images that were circulating before the widespread adoption of the photograph as the primary medium of reproduction. I trust you will enjoy the essay.

You can download “Wood Engravings, the ‘Marvelous Spread of Illustrated Publications,’ and the History of Art” via this link.